The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing the surface of bodies having irregular contours in the form of a body of rotation driven by a shaft guided in it, and held against the surface to be processed. It consists of a plurality of sections held against the body to be processed, the shell surface of which body is the carrier for the means for processing the surface.
Such apparatus is being used, for example, in car wash installations. In such wash installations, rotating wash brushes which extend in the horizontal and vertical directions and are laid out for the height and width of the current passenger automobile chassis, clean or wash the vehicle passing through the wash installation using water and detergents. They may be followed by polishing brushes. The layout of the brushes must be adaptable to various dimensions, and if possible to different chassis shapes. This can be realized roughly with a programmed control influencing the brush layout. Vehicle contours deviating from the vertical are accommodated by a suitable inclination of the brushes, and also by providing the brushes with very long bristles so that with proper installation, even recessed or offset surface portions are reached. One must accept, however, that the bristles striking the projecting or raised surface portions are bent over. This proves to be a disadvantage insofar as it impairs the cleaning effect of the bristles which is optimally achieved by the bristle tips. There also has been proposed a multipart wash brush for cleaning the roof of busses, etc., whose sections adapt to the roof curvature (British Pat. No. 757,722). The brush sections are internal cylindrical and outer cone-shaped brush bodies arranged rigidly on flexibly connected drive shaft sections. This wash brush when held against the vehicle roof to be cleaned adapts to the roof contours in such a way that the off-center sections of the wash brush are lowered to a greater extent. Under their own weight, including the weight of the drive shaft sections, the wash brush sections contact the surface to be cleaned. These lead again to the bending of bristles, impairing the cleaning effect of the brushes. Also, the possibility of dividing such a wash brush is limited by the otherwise acceptable expensive construction; hence their adaptability is also limited. Finally, an individual adaptation of the brush sections to surfaces essentially extending in the vertical direction, such as the side surfaces of chassis, cannot be accomplished.
The problem of adaptability of rotating bodies, having processing means on their surface, to the contours of the body to be processed has been explained above for the known application "carwash and polishing brushes"; but it also appears in other subject areas. It arises when cleaning castings, the reworking of ceramic goods and products of wood and plastic; and hence generally with the processing of bodies having irregular contours, or of surfaces having contours.
It is the object of the invention to solve the problem of individual application to surfaces having contours during the processing of such surfaces by means of a rotating body whose shell surface is the carrier of processing means or is formed from processing means in such a way that all surface portions to be processed are processed optimally.